Saturday, February 23, 2013

play a defensive game, as by persistently blocking the ball instead of batting it for distance and runs.

When it comes to getting the truth about the 9/11 attacks in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, the Obama administration has lied - for two weeks, the administration blamed the attacks on a video - and it has stonewalled in the face of countless unanswered questions. In fact, when it became apparent that there were so many breakdowns on so many levels, Republicans from both Houses of Congress requested that select committees be formed.

In the Senate, Republicans are in the minority and Harry Reid has predictably stonewalled these requests because select committees that are formed to investigate scandals that could reach the president's office are much more effective than existent committees. Select committees would be made up of A-listers from various committees that would leverage their own individual areas of expertise. Reid is not going to put that kind of heat on a Democratic president.

Neither is Boehner; the Speaker of the House - a Republican - is stonewalling as well.

Check out what Boehner said last November, via Kerry Picket at Breitbart:

Both Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), along with other Democrats, rebuffed the idea of a joint select committee to investigate the Benghazi attack.

“At this point, I think that the standing committees of the House, whether they be the (State Department) oversight committee or the intelligence committee, are working diligently on these issues,” Boehner said shortly after his Senate colleagues floated the idea in November.

Some may see a bicameral committee (one that consists of both Representatives and Senators) as the best option, the absence of Senators does not preclude a select House committee from being formed. In fact, Rep. Frank Wolf wrote to Boehner in November and asked for that very thing. Boehner stonewalled the request then and is doing so now.

Writes Picket:

Speaker Boehner did not heed Wolf’s call for a select committee in the last Congress. In late January, Wolf refiled the resolution to establish a House Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi attack. Boehner has yet to comment or act upon the resolution.

Breitbart News sent an inquiry to Speaker Boehner's office on Thursday afternoon that has gone unanswered.

When it comes to the details about what happened or didn't happen in Benghazi, the administration is preventing the truth from coming out. That is stonewalling. In Boehner's case, he is preventing the assembly of the best team possible to help reveal the truth. That too is stonewalling.

Are these two forms of stonewalling apples and oranges or are they distinctions without differences?

The answer is the latter. As the Speaker of the House - regardless of Party affiliation - Boehner should be spearheading any attempt to get to the truth about what happened on 9/11/12 in Benghazi. He is doing the opposite; he is doing what Harry Reid is doing.

John Boehner is stonewalling an investigation into Benghazi and when it comes to Boehner, this type of behavior is very predictable; he did the best he could to minimize the impact of the Fast and Furious investigation as well. That it went as far as it did is a testament to the likes of House Oversight Committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They pushed in spite of Boehner, not with his assistance. That was very clear.

In fact, Boehner scheduled the House vote on whether to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for not relinquishing documents subpoenaed by the Oversight Committee, on the same day that the Supreme Court rendered its Obamacare decision. As if that wasn't bad enough, on the day of the contempt vote, Obama did what Nixon did in Watergate; he asserted Executive Privilege to prevent the release of those documents.

Boehner protected the President. Period.

Some have suggested that the reason for doing so had to do with not wanting to harm Romney's chances in the 2012 election. Yeah? How'd that work out? The answer should be obvious. Romney lost the election and Republicans, in general, had their clocks cleaned because they chose not to fight. Fast and Furious is the quintessential example of something that warranted a high profile fight, if for no other reason than justice for the victims and their families, regardless of the election. Nonetheless, Boehner chose not to fight and his party lost big.

Benghazi is not all that dissimilar from Fast and Furious. Both involve guns (it's looking increasingly like Benghazi even involved gun running); both involved dead Americans; both involve an administration that is stonewalling the truth; and both apparently involve a House Speaker that prefers to sweep the carnage under the rug.

Such a Committee would be formed to investigate the truth about Benghazi from every angle. It would include members who've demonstrated incredible political courage in the Fast and Furious investigation, chaired by the man who was at the tip of that spear:

Chairman: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)Members:

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ)

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)

Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL)

Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID)

Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI)

Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI)

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

Rep. Peter King (R-NY)

Rep. Pat Meehan (R-PA)

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC)

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)

Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX)

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA)

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

There may be other Republicans worthy of consideration but the aforementioned list consists of those who have proven their mettle. As for Democrats, who cares? They'll be Obama's pawns. They can have whomever they like.

The Benghazi attack / coverup along with Fast and Furious are the Obama administration's two biggest scandals. Both involve dead Americans; one also involves hundreds of dead Mexicans. House Speaker John Boehner fought House Republicans at every turn when they wanted to get to the bottom of Fast and Furious. It was obvious to even the casual observer that Boehner wanted that story to go away.

The main objective of the Democratic Party is to win back the House in 2014. Benghazi is playing out in this election cycle in much the same way that Fast and Furious did in the last one. It could be argued that Republicans lost in 2012 - in large part - because Boehner and other Republican leaders chose not to fight for the truth in the gun-walking scandal. If the Democrats win the House in 2014, it could very well be because Boehner and other Republican leaders chose not to fight for the truth about Benghazi.